Ken Taylor

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Alternative Title:
Kenneth Douglas Taylor

Ken Taylor, (Kenneth Douglas Taylor), Canadian diplomat (born May 10, 1934, Calgary, Alta.—died Oct. 15, 2015, New York, N.Y.), was Canada’s ambassador to Iran during the hostage crisis in November 1979; he took responsibility for sheltering six American employees of the U.S. embassy after the embassy compound was attacked and taken over by Iranian militants and helped the Americans safely depart from Iran. The six had managed to slip out of the embassy on November 4 as it came under siege. After a few days of hiding out in various houses in Tehran, the Americans contacted Taylor and chief immigration officer John Sheardown to request sanctuary. Taylor and Sheardown took the escapees into their homes, where they remained for nearly three months. Taylor worked with the U.S. and Canadian governments to secure Canadian passports, visas, and other documents to allow the Americans to pose as Canadians, and on Jan. 28, 1980, the Americans safely flew out of Tehran on a Swissair passenger plane. The episode was dramatized in the Canadian TV movie Escape from Iran: The Canadian Caper (1981), the Academy Award best picture winner Argo (2012), and the documentary Our Man in Tehran (2013). Taylor earned a B.A. (1957) at the University of Toronto and an M.B.A. (1959) at the University of California, Berkeley. He joined Canada’s foreign service in 1959 and was initially posted to Guatemala. He was later assigned to Karachi and to London before returning (1971) to Ottawa, where he worked in various areas, including external relations and foreign trade. He was named ambassador to Iran in 1977. In January 1979, amid the collapse of the regime of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, Taylor arranged for the evacuation of 850 Canadians living and working in Iran. As the escape of the Americans unfolded in January 1980, Taylor also oversaw the closing of Canada’s embassy in Tehran. He later served as consul general to New York, and he retired in 1984 from the diplomatic corps. In 1981 Taylor was honoured with the U.S. Congressional Gold Medal and was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.

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